I was hoping someone could give me some in depth information on Drones since I'm coming from 3rd edition. I've just finished reading up on how the Remote Control Deck is now obsolete and replaced with the Commlink... Now while having a Vehicle Control Rig MAKES a Rigger what he is, since everything is done via the Commlink, is it more common to find Mages and Street Samuri with some Drone back up?

Obviously anyone BESIDES a Rigger wouldn't have the top of the line Firewalls, ECCM's, etc.... But in theory, is everyone sporting a Drone?

Cheap microdrones are very common for different kind of characters.

SYL

Hacker's have a duty Decker's didnt: Overwatching the team's TAN. (Team area network)
Every commlink should be maxed out because its the cruddy one the enemy will use to listen to the team from.

Drones in an unprotected PAN serve the enemy, not the team, so in a way, yes... everyone uses drones and those that actively protect their PAN/TAN don't bring drones for the enemy to use.

I thought that was more the realm of the Decker/Hacker.... Or is Hacker more of a mish-mash of Decker, Rigger, and Grease Monkey from 3rd edition?

From what I can tell, I believe that was the developer's orignal intent, yes. Of course, you do see builds that still specialize out into decker type activities, and builds that specialize out into rigger type activities, as well as hybridization with some of the other classes, such as Adept/Hacker, or Sammy/Drone Rigger.

It has not been unusual IME to find many characters sporting drones. Of course, the larger more pimped drones are too costly in BPs for every character to use them. And with BPs as tight as they are, mages, for example, have more important things to spend them on.

Speaking of commlink security, the hacker/tech in my game told the group how she had managed to compromise their target's PAN, prompting the matrix phobic street sam to immediately shut down his commlink, and directly tie his smartgun to his smartlink via skinlink, out of fear. He has declared to the team that he won't be online at all until he has a rating 6 IC, and the hardware to support it.

Plus it so easy to max out a MetaLink comlink at character creation. I really cannot imagine any runner having a less than maxed out comlink and OS.

Availability, IIRC, is 3x rating. RAW don't allow that at chargen.

And not every player realises the ramifications of the Wireless World.

Or, sometimes, between the shortage of gear Nuyen, and character concept, the player decides that the character does not realize the ramifications.

Yours,
JoelHalpern

PS: If one assumes the character gets it, and has the contacts or whatever, Then a Response 5, OS 5, Firewall 6 commlink with IC 4 and Analyse and and Attack seems to be what is called for, and runs about 25K. If I have read the rules right. (Without the attack, the IC / Attack the player would get warning of intrusion, but not be able to do anything about it.)

Availability limits will get you a commlink with System & Firewall 6 and Response & Signal 5 for 11,100¥.

Bumping Response to 6 after day 1 will set you back either 8k or 4k and a Logic + Hardware (12, 1 day) test once your fixer gets through the 16 Availability.

True. Also, not every GM cares to play up the ramifications of the Wireless World.

-paws

I think many people on here overplay the ramifications of the wireless world. Just because the means exist to hack many systems, doesn't mean everyone does. Especially at a price of 25k for a (more) secure system. I think I make decent money but thats more than half my yearly salary (while saying 1 = $1, but I think its closer to 1 = $10). I think the Troll Bow valued at 1200 is something that I would be more paranoid of, and then walk around in full on combat suit to protect me from it. But just like not every troll carries a bow, not every kid carries the hackpack. Unless you are constantly facing opposing runner teams, your network should be mostly secure. Corps are going to invest more into security, and scan programs to pick up rogue signals, not attack programs. Once they find the signals that don't belong they can sound an alarm and track your signal and take care of you in person.

Drones are easily in everyones reach, with basic pilot and autosoft software. I'm the hacker/(minor) rigger in my group, and our face runs a VTOL scouting drone, mostly due to the amount of Intuition/Perception bonuses he gets. Even with a low sensor rating he still rolls about 12 dice. (Attention Co-Processors etc... Not vision/audio adjustments for those that are questioning this)

Everyone can have useful drones. Everyone can have a Hacker in a box. Everyone can "jump" into vehicles. But not everyone does it all. Not everyone can be best at it all. Riggers are still best at rigging, Hackers at hacking, but anyone who needs to can do a little of each.

Good? Bad? Up to you. but it's SR4.

That isn't true. The character could attempt to shut down the connection that the intruder is using, or failing that, he can initiate a reboot.